[stirringleaf]

my ds is 20 mos, and has had a cold for over a week. he is really congested, and now all of a sudden he has developed an intermittant whooping sounding cough, where he coughs and gasps for air. it has happened about 4 or 5 times today, and especially when he is trying to sleep. i have him sleeping right next to me as i type this cuz i am so worried.

i went to the whooping cough site where you can listen to the coughs, and his sounds like the classic whooping cough , but his coughing fit is only a few seconds long, not a minute or two. he hasnt thrown up from it or turned blue or anything...yet...

can a kid "whoop" like that without having whooping cough?

i ask cuz when he was a newborn he would gasp for air alot, esp when he slept. i was so freaked out about it but it went away as he got older. i am wondering if this is just how he deals with mucous, kind of chokey and gaspy.

i am sooooo afraid! he has never had a cough before period, so i dont have another cold to compare this to. all i know is his eys are runny, his nose is runny, and he seems wiped out, after a week of being sick.

please help, he is not immunized and i feel so terrible about that right now. i feel like getting him all his shots ! but then thats so scary also....i am very very worried...

 

[Pigpen]

Please don't feel guilty about this! For one thing, children who are immunized get whooping cough as well. My nephew just had croup and it sounded like what you described. Just another possibility...

 

[jackson's mama]

Yes, I agree with omegamama... could it be croup? Pertussis (whooping cough) usually is evidenced by a cough that just will not stop. Its pretty horrendous to watch. There's a reason people have spent millions of dollars trying to find a vax for it.

Try taking him out for a walk in the night air, or bringing him into a bathroom filled with steam and see if that helps.

 

[cobluegirl]

Don't feel bad. None of us like seeing our babies sick. It is so hard and easy to second guess ourselves. If he has it, it will be better for his immune system then the vax. The P(pertussis) in the DPT has the highest reaction rate and usually it is the vaxed kids that start the epidemic. We have lots of info on whooping cough on the vax board. Also there is a gal here somewhere that helped her baby through whooping cough when she was younger then yours. Homopathy works great. Also get some sodium abscorbate (vit c, certian kind) and give it to him as much as he can take. That will help get rid of it no matter what it is.

 

[Gemini]

One of the moderators here had it with her twins this summer. Laralou I think?? Am I right on the username??

 

[cobluegirl]

Yes Laralou!!

The other gal that I mentioned in my earlier post was Chevy..then she has some numbers after the letters..I just don't remember what they are.....Here IRL name is Amy.

 

[Gemini]

Here's Laralou's thread abut her twins. Hilary has some GREAT info on how to help your little one if it is indeed whooping cough.

http://216.92.20.151/discussions/sho...ight=pertussis

I would probably be feeling the exact same guilt your feeling if one of my girls got sick. After Nemmer and I had read the above thread we both kind of shuttered and said now we know why they wanted a vaccine for this illness! Seeing your own child being so sick is soooo tough. But you're his mom and you'll carry him through this.

Hilary has very good advice to give. Read it and use it! I'll be thinking of you!

to you and your ds.

 

[Liz]

My son is going through a terrible coughing cold that started out croupie. You may know this but I didn't and found it helpful: Croup is a symptom of a throat infection that can occur at any point in a cold. In older children it would be laryngitis but little ones have such narrow throats that the swelling actually restricts their breathing and the coughing just irritates the throat more. As others have said take the baby into the bathroom, shut the door and turn on a hot shower. Try and calm the baby and stay calm yourself. If the baby gets panicked breathing will be even more difficult. I then put my son back to bed propped up with his window open and he slept through the night.

Good luck, Mama.

 

[stirringleaf]

well, i havent come back to post in a few days cuz of taking care of ds and i had a mid term at school also....sigh....didnt sleep much all week and now i feel that this virus is hitting me ...

anyway yesterday i took him to the doctor, and i dont know what they thought of me, but i just had to ask them if they thought it could be pertussis. he hasnt had coughing fits, so she didnt think so. i am still all freaked out about the "gasping fit" that he does have, he gasps and gasps for air and then finally coughs. my dh was right: he thougt it was probably just the mucous pooling in his throat or something, esp when he sleeps, making him choke.

she thought he may have a sinus infection and gave me a perscrition for antibiotics, which she said i could fill at my own discretion, depending on how he looks this weekend. i cant beleive how easily they hand out that stuff, like candy, and this is a pretty cool clinic...i almost didnt expect that. i decided to start giving him tylenal infant decongestant medicine, and that really really helped. today is the third day since we started giving it (mostly at bedtime or when he gets really mucousy), and he is doing better. his eyes arent puffy anymore , or runny (they had been for almost 2 weeks)

anyway, he hasnt choked all day today. i think he is having seroius post nasal drip. now that i am getting the cold, i feel like my throat is swollen and major post nasal drip. so for him i bet its choking him since he doesnt blow his nose or know how to cough or spit that stuff out.

thank you SO SO much for your responses, i went and read the link above and that was very encouraging and helpful to read. it is so hard to watch your baby struggle for air , gasping and making that awful choking sound!

he has never been ill this long, hes had some colds.... but not like this. i could rail about the doctor and how she started talking to me about his teeth rather than his cold, and how it was sort of demeaning cuz she acted like i was being a nervous mom, but i was fine takng care of his cold until the chocking started. i hate how they make it seem like you are neglecting them if you DONT bring them in but you are overly worried if you DO . sigh. ok, but thanks so much again.....

~stirringleaf

 

[cobluegirl]

We use Grapefruit seed Extract nasal spay and it works good. It is a natural anti-fungal/anti-viral, I believe. It is made by Nutribiotics. Hope you little one gets better soon.

 

[stirringleaf]

wow, i was just wondeirng about natural nasal sprays. i have never used any nasal spray whatsoever...what do they do? does it help stop post nasal drip and hence the sore throat it can cause? i think i will go buy some of that tomorrow if it sounds like it will help me cuz i am trying to fend this thing off still, taking echancea zinc, vit. C, seems to help but yes, do tell me what the spray is good for! thanks! i assume it helps clear congestion, but since many virusus live in the back of the nose, i was wondering if you have had experience with this killing off the cold.

 

[DaryLLL]

I am glad it doesn't seem to be pertussis.

Just wanted to add, we (me and my 3 kids), and my neices, age 13, her older brother 20, and their neice age 2 (my great-neice), all had it too. My family and I got it from the teen neice.

The 2 yr old was unvaxed and non-bfed (her mom had had her thyroid removed due to bad hyper-thyroidism and did not get her meds figured out in time to establish bf).

She got her through it. She had a bad 3 weeks, but I just want to say to anyone reading this, don't panic if it happens to you. it is hard while it is going on, but you do get through it. Do not let it scare you into vaxing!!!

 

[cobluegirl]

The GFSE will help kill the bad bacteria that hides in the back of the nose. It may help the congestion a little. I don't think it would help the drip at all. Do get some..you could some some GFSE pills too and take them and that would help get rid of the cold too. Keep the echinacea, Vit C up.

 

[stirringleaf]

thanks you guys! you are SO AWESOME

his cough has become a normal, less scary cough today. i am so relieved. but after posting this i feel slightly more confident if he DOES get pertussis that just maybe i will be able to deal with it!

ill just come here for support if that happens!

i feel bad though, the little 12 month old i babysit in the weekday mornings caught it ( his mom knew my ds was sick but didnt really have a choice, cant miss work for 2 weeks and all)

so tomorrow i will be taking care of that poor little baby too! poor kids! its a yucky cold! good thing i have lots of stuff for wiping noses!